ABSTRACT
In 1940, Hattie McDaniel made history in the motion picture industry when she was awarded an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as "Mammy" in the iconic film, Gone with the Wind. Black identity today is being attacked through the medium of television and film. In the 1970s and '80s, American television viewers saw an influx in the portrayals of African American characters in a new way: as the lead characters in series and series that had predominantly black casts of characters. Tragedy is not only a necessity in the stories of the lives of black women, but a prefabricated ideal of what black womanhood is supposed to represent. Black history and culture is so rich and so varied that it cannot possibly be contained or restricted to a history of slavery or confined to its origins from Africa.
